What Is A Hybrid car?

What Is A Hybrid car?

Hybrid means a thing made by combining two things.
In the case of a hybrid car this is the combination of partly electric, with a petrol or diesel engine to fall back on if the electric supply starts to run low.

Hybrids are the stepping stones

Hybrids were very much brought in as a stepping stone for progression to fully electric vehicles. As the world begins the transitional stage of making available the infrastructure to being able to run a fully eclectic vehicles.
The hybrids allowed you to lower you CO2 emissions, save on rising fuel costs and receive grant incentives to help sway you to purchasing one (however this is set to change see budget cuts, grant cuts).
You could also skip congestion charges and potentially lower your tax bills.

Here are the variations of Hybrids

Fully Hybrid, or Parallel Hybrid

This is a car which can be driven under its own electric power, petrol/diesel combination. The electric motor is driving the wheels under full electric power for a short distance. However for the majority of the time the car will be driven by a mix of combustion engine and electric. These are for daily driving, their batteries are generally small capacity, such as the Toyota Prius.

Plug-in Hybrid, or PHEV

Like the Fully Hybrid you can fully charge this up at home, or on a long journey, this means you start your journey with a fully charged battery. This in hand means you are more likely to make it into a city centre in full electric mode. These cars typically have a larger battery capacity to increase their electric range, about 25-30 miles.

Mild Hybrid

This hybrid cannot run on electric power alone, an electric motor is only used to assist the powertrain. The mild hybrid is used by manufacturers to denote energy saving technology such as engine cut out whilst at standstill. In summary wheels are not driven by electric, but the drivetrain does use fuel saving technologies to reduce consumption.

Range Extender Hybrid, or REX Hybrid, or Series Hybrid

This hybrid only uses the combustion engine as a generator to charge the battery, rather than to drive the wheels. In summary the combustion engine goes straight into the electric drivetrain, rather than on the wheels on the road.

The majority of hybrids are automatics, with automatic gear boxes designed to maximise economy and deliver pulling power when you need to accelerate.

Do you drive a Hybrid car which one do you drive and what are your thoughts?